


Love

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Childhood, Declarations Of Love, Family, Gen, Love, Memory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:11:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6875674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma's second earliest memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love

Belinda was first person Emma could remember saying “I love you” to. It was perhaps her second earliest memory; she recalled being about three years old and fighting with Jimmy about what he had done with her best doll, Clarissa Louisa. The memory of telling Belinda had a similar feel to it, a vagueness which she attributed to its reality as opposed to the clarity she associated with stories she had heard so many times and in such detail, the vividness of a green velvet skirt, the brightness of a flame on the sideboard, that she had made them a sort of false memory, at least they were part of her personal history.

Belinda had finished mending her doll’s dress or maybe she had been tucking Emma in her little white bed; the setting was unclear, shadowed. What was not was the feeling Emma had had looking at Belinda’s calm eyes, the faint pink of her head-wrap, which once been red and printed with daisies. Belinda had not been smiling at her especially, but her face was affectionate and she had only said, “No, Miss Emma, you mustn’ say such things.” Emma had known Belinda was telling her to save those words for her mother, the mother she admired but who was at a remove from her, whose hands did not handle broken dolls, were not cool in the night when a fever struck. Emma nodded at what Belinda had said and she did not say it again until Manassas.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was my "love" prompt response. I liked thinking about something other than the conventional romantic pairings and I feel like Belinda is this super awesome character (pay her more, you fools!) who gets very short shrift in fan fiction. I think Emma would love her very much without understanding her very well.


End file.
